1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electric junction box to be mounted to an automobile. In particular, the present invention relates to an electric box having a connector fitting portion to which a connector of a wire harness is fitted.
2. Description of the Related Art
A variety of electric equipments are mounted to an automobile. In order to supply electric power to these electric equipments as well as transmit signal thereto, there is provided an electric junction box located at a suitable position in the automobile. The electric junction box herein is used as a general term for a junction block (also referred as a junction box), a fuse block (also referred as a fuse box) or a relay block (also referred as a relay box).
There may be several types of electric junction boxes depending on a type of the automobile. One example of the electric junction box is shown in FIG. 13, in which an electric junction box 310 is provided with a case 304 composed of a box-like body 302 and a box-like body 303 which can be assembled together, a substrate (not shown) received in the case 304, and a connector fitting portion 309 provided at an end portion of the substrate and exposed on the outside of the case 304 (refer to Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2009-153318).
The connector fitting portion 309 is arranged to engage with a connector of a wire harness. Furthermore, the connector fitting portion 309 is provided with a housing 305 made of synthetic resin and an L-shaped terminal 306 formed at the housing 305 by insert molding, as shown in FIG. 14. The housing 305 includes and is formed integrally with: a back wall 307 holding a middle portion of the terminal 306; and an outer wall 308 surrounding one end portion 306a of the terminal 306. The one end portion 306a of the terminal 306 inside the outer wall 308 is arranged to electrically connect with a connector fitted into the outer wall 308. In addition, the other portion 306b of the terminal 306 arranged outside the outer wall 308 is soldered to the substrate using reflow soldering or flow soldering and is electrically connected to the substrate.